DevOps and cloud adoption at CDL
CDL is the UK market leader for insurance software. Their practices - aided by Conflux - were featured in the book Team Topologies.
“This was a very team-friendly way of assessing software delivery and it produced useful, actionable recommendations.”
CDL offers powerful solutions enabling insurers to achieve strategic, mass market distribution of their products, while retaining control through insurer hosted rating mechanisms. Combining an ambitious R&D programme with a track record of industry firsts, CDL also works closely with insurers to create next generation insurance products, in tune with the expectations of millennials.
In 2018, CDL began to take steps to accelerate delivery of changes to its widely-used insurance software. Several successful innovation pilots had shown “the art of the possible” and the challenge was then to adopt these pilot practices across the rest of the organization.
Conflux helped CDL to assess its current approaches to planning, building, testing, and operating its software services in three phases:
A team-centric assessment of practices for building and running software using DevOps principles
A wide-ranging, strategic assessment of practices across all areas of engineering and IT
A series of workshops and group sessions focused on inter-team dynamics, Team Topologies principles, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
The work led to increased clarity about the pathway to a cloud-centric operating model, practical steps for decomposing a large monolithic software codebase, and increased engagement from practitioners.
“We engaged Conflux to provide a 2-day DevOps-focused software delivery assessment across six of our software development squads here at CDL. We wanted to get an independent view of what was working well and what needed improvement, and the results were eye-opening for us. After the assessment it was clear that we needed to consider quite significant changes in how the teams are composed, organised and run, plus better definition of our internal and external software services.
The assessment process itself was refreshing to see: the Conflux consultant quickly developed a good rapport with the various teams, putting them at ease and helping them to produce an honest assessment of their practices, skills, capabilities, and frustrations. This was a very team-friendly way of assessing software delivery and it produced useful, actionable recommendations.”
The modern Codeworks building at CDL.